Of Witches and Wishes
by the-laziest-athlete-you-know
Summary: Everyone who knows anything about ninjas will be able to tell you that the more powerful they are, the crazier they become. What they don't realize is that it's generally the other way around.
1. A Step to the Left

Everyone who knows anything about ninjas will be able to tell you that the more powerful they are, the crazier they become. What they don't realize is that it's generally the other way around.

Sakura always knew she was a little different. It was like the difference between having a funny quirk and children side-eyeing you at lunch. Sakura was always a step to the side of normal. It wasn't the hair. It wasn't the forehead. No one could quite put a finger on what made Sakura Haruno so different while still looking and acting like everyone else. It wasn't until Sakura stood over her first dead body years later that she herself knew the answer. Instinct.

* * *

Her parents were civilians which meant they saw but never understood the signs. Why did their bubbly daughter who had never known hunger take care to eat all her food at every meal, sometimes even while complaining of the taste? Why did she have bags of jerky, nuts, and dried fruit stashed around her room and the house as if they didn't have a bowl constantly full of fresh fruit? Why did all the paring knives she used to cut apples (Sakura was very independent) always disappear and end up scattered in her bed, backpack, or jammed in a pocket? Why did she always walk silently, even as she chattered loudly about her day? Why did she shy away from the lady across the street, a bustling mom of three who had a soft spot for Sakura, but happily attach herself to the side of the grumpy shop owner two streets over who only spoke to complain about her being in the way?

"She has a habit of picking up strays" they'd say to people wondering why _anyone_ would be willing to endure the presence of the frigid, harsh old man.

It was true, Sakura did have a habit of picking up strays. Of putting herself in the path of people who wanted nothing more than to be left alone and have them buying her ice cream by the end of the week. She was the same way with cats. She wouldn't leave one alone until she was sure it liked her, it didn't matter if it was feral and dirty or pristine and belonged to somebody else. She regularly came home with scratches but, like clockwork, the cats would come around and tolerate (enjoy) her presence.

It wasn't until she joined the academy that she realized people usually had friends their own age rather than a motley assortment of wild cats, old people, and adults with PTSD. She couldn't quite figure out why though. The kids were strange. They yelled at their parents. They would rather _not eat food_ if they didn't like the taste. What the hell does taste matter if you're hungry? She would ask them. She never got a good answer, just a stream of whining about how beans are _gross_ and "but mom _knows_ I hate carrots!" They didn't quite seem real to her. They were like those tely programs where people are continually obsessed with things that don't matter. She couldn't connect.

Sakura decided to stick with the things she understood. She knew what mattered and what didn't and since her peers obviously _didn't_ …well, she'd wait. They'll figure it out eventually.

* * *

It took Sakura a while to find her chakra but when she did, it was such a core part of her and her body that she knew she'd never lose it again. It was like people telling you all your life about blood but using a different word until the first time you get cut and people point and use the word and you feel incredibly silly for not realizing they had been talking about _blood_ the whole time. I mean, how could you not know about your own blood? Sakura had been using chakra her whole life, when she tried to swim upstream in the Naka river, when she screamed _really_ loudly for her mom that time she broke her arm in the park, when she ran as fast as she could to catch the stupid kid that stole her candy. It had always been there instinctively, the conscious knowledge of it only made it that much easier to manipulate.

She spent all her time messing with it. What happens if I poke this with chakra? Can I poke things with chakra from anywhere on my body? How much chakra do I need to use to be able to see it? Can I feel other people's chakra? I can feel my chakra so if I poke something with chakra can I feel that too? How far away from me can I send my chakra? If I can move things with my chakra, can I make it move ink and use it to write my homework? Flip pages of my book while I'm in the bath? Tie my shoes? Brush my hair? Dry me off? Can I use it to read people's minds? Chakra was her newest obsession and she was determined to know absolutely everything about it and its applications before moving onto the next thing that caught her attention.

She could do a lot with her chakra, she realized. She could move objects, use her chakra to explore the structure and components of objects, use her chakra to feel the people and objects within a certain range, feel other people's chakra, stretch her chakra like a rope, and so much more. It was exhilarating. She spent class time trying to move her pen with her chakra and weapons classes learning how to direct her weapons with chakra (completely baffling her teachers with her terrible stance and high accuracy). In taijutsu she used her chakra like a second skin to soften blows, to increase her own strength, and to mess up her opponent's chakra, decreasing their strength and balance. Later, she learned how to slip her chakra inside her opponent and freeze their muscles with a touch. Again, the instructors were confused. They thought the other kids were holding back on her.

Sakura felt like a magician, a sorceress. She was pulling strings people hadn't even realized existed. She felt powerful, giddy. She was eight and on top of the world when she learned that it didn't even matter. The kids didn't like her. She hadn't thought that mattered. There was only so much a second skin of chakra could do when some brat's genin big brother and his friends ganged up on you. Witch, they called her. They had realized she was doing something they didn't understand and it scared them. Freak, they said. They accused her of pulling cheap tricks being _different_.

"If you represent Normal…" she spoke with mud on her face and blood on her teeth "I will happily be your Witch."

* * *

And that's what she was after that, the Witch. The classes were moved around the next year to account for the civilian kids that always drop out (and one boy who came to regret sending his brothers after anyone). Her new class was full of clan kids and the civilian-born who made the cut. It didn't take long for the stories to spread. With the Witch and the Demon in the same class, it was a wonder they didn't just start giving everyone nicknames.

Sakura was a quick learner and the last year had taught her two things. 1- Don't dismiss anyone because even the weakest can pose a threat. 2- Chakra isn't always the answer.

Her taijutsu and accuracy were woefully pathetic without chakra so she studied the books and lessons and painstakingly perfected her forms. She studied anatomy texts and learned where to hit, how to use every bit of force her body could offer, what to organs to prioritize when blocking. A hapless, overworked doctor with a coffee addiction let Sakura trail behind her on her shifts, taking notes, bandaging, and learning how to diagnose ailments and injuries. Sakura's parents encouraged it as a backup in case the shinobi path fell through. By the time she was ten, she was using the mystical palm jutsu for basic healing constantly and Riku-san had been introducing her as an apprentice since she brought her first fish back to reasonable health. Sakura still loved the chakra exercises and took such care with every minute detail that Riku-shishou quickly moved her on to burns, torn muscles and tendons, and even simple bone fractures. Sakura thrived in those dry, sterile rooms with nothing but her and her latest puzzle.

School was a different matter. She had stopped being to obvious about her chakra manipulation because she didn't want the teachers to realize what she was doing. Instead, she learned to use it subtly. Little things. Ino would scream at her to go find a new seat and get away from "her" Sasuke-kun. The next day, Ino's hair tie broke in taijutsu and she walked away with a black eye. A boy would try to intimidate her on the street or on a forest path and she'd make her sharp green eyes glow ever so slightly and let a bit of green healing chakra flicker across her hands like poison. They learned to leave her alone.

Sakura did have friends, they just weren't in her class. Riku-shishou and the hospital staff liked her, so did Tendai-san who owned a weapons shop and his daughter Tenten. She had some friends in the civilian side on the Nara clan, the ones who dealt with medicinal herbs. She even knew genin, chunin, _and_ jounin who liked her! Though that was probably cause they were usually high on pain meds and therefore had happy feelings associated with her but they were generally willing to give her advice if she saw them afterwards. She often felt like she learned more from five minutes with a chunin or jounin then she did in a year of academy.

* * *

By the time the final exams and team assignments came around, Sakura was thoroughly and utterly bored of the academy. Her classmates had simply become screachy-er and more hyper focused on utterly useless things while the academy told her to be proud to know a grand total of three jutsus despite having learned far more useful ones in the hospital (you know, where she was _saving lives_ ). She wanted to learn to use her _chakra_ damnit, who the hell cares about _boys_. She was still a step to the side, disconnected from her surroundings.

Then she ended up with the two most problematic of the aforementioned boys on her team. Three if you counted her sensei. The bell test was a sham, they all got beaten into the dirt and Kakashi berated her for not knowing how to release a genjutsu. When she told him they hadn't learned much of anything about genjutsu he gave her a _look_ , a softly patronizing look saying you're and intelligent girl, you should have gone to the library once in a while. She clenches her fists and realizes that he knows nothing about her. When they end up passing simply because she shared some rice with her teammates she ends up more angry than relieved. Apparently that was all she was worth to Kakashi, simply a body ready to serve her teammates but not so much a shinobi in her own right.

She goes to the library and doesn't leave until she's found _every single scroll_ on genjutsu she has clearance for. Then she reads and practices. And practices. Some of the ninja patients in the hospital agree to be test subjects and a few know enough to give her pointers and teach her new jutsus. She doesn't tell Kakashi, not yet, not until it's perfect and she can completely shatter his stupid preconceived notions.

It turns out she's good at genjutsu, really good. Not like a prodigy though, she still messes up on all the normal things, but she has an affinity for the art. The world never really felt real to her, not the happy middle class house and family, not her peers, not even the village itself so she takes to illusions like she's been living and breathing them her whole life. The best thing about genjutsu isn't even bringing impossible scenarios to life, it's that the other person is completely convinced that whatever they are seeing is realistic. It's so _easy_ to alter something and watch everyone accept it as fact. She can convince their minds that their own hair and skin is a different color or that they _really_ want to give her ice cream or tips on her taijutsu form. It makes her Witch intimidation even more effective. She practices holding small illusions constantly throughout the day.

The team drag their feet through D-rank after D-rank. There's so little action that Naruto's ADHD is making him explode which drives both Sasuke and her through the roof. Sakura starts giving Naruto little challenges, things against himself. Do this section and see how fast you are, then beat that time sort of thing. Stuff that leaves her and Sasuke a little peace to work. Though, of course, Sasuke is a whole 'nother issue. She knocks him flat into the dirt a few times when he mouths off and sometimes they leave Naruto to race himself through painting the fence while they try to beat each other's faces into the street. Sasuke's anger is an ugly, snarling thing (it's like he's trying to punch his sadness away). Sometimes it's Naruto and Sasuke at each other's throats. Sometimes Naruto and Sakura team up against Sasuke and sometimes Naruto decides he can take on the entire world and yells at the other two to "Come at me, dattebayo! I'm gonna be the strongest ninja in the whole village one day!" Strangely, she only ends up fighting Naruto one on one in spars.

When they recieve the mission scroll telling them to catch a _cat_ , Sakura is pretty sure it's just another prank (only being played on Naruto for once), when she watches grown chunin shudder as they remember when _they_ were assigned the same mission, she is convinced the whole damn village have lost their minds. Because you see, Sakura loves cats. When they caught sight of the overweight fluffball she hissed sharply at her teammates to leave this one to her. Naruto is confused because he's thinking of this like a fight and hurt because he knows she thinks he'll mess it up. Sasuke narrows his eyes like she just called him weak and is ready to snap out a cutting remark when she raises her hand. Kakashi doesn't even glance up from his book.

"Guys chill, I'm not putting you down I'm just saying I have a lot of experience getting downright hostile cats to love me like I'm the patron goddess of food. You guys should cover escape routes in case it doesn't work but I'm gonna go in and make that fat cat love me." Now they just look confused but are mostly sure she isn't insulting their honor and cat-hunting skills. Kakashi arches his eyebrow and she sends him a dismissive, scornful glance. She's only become increasingly pissed at him for constantly prioritizing the boys.

The cat recognizes her as a ninja instantly. It stands up and poofs even more, spitting in warning like an angry cloud with needles. It doesn't run however, because Sakura is still pretty far away and cats are lazy by nature. Sakura sits down. She keeps talking with her team over the microphone, explaining that she's only speaking to get the cat used to her presence. Once the cat relaxes she moves closer, and again, and again. Soon she's just out of arm's reach and still chattering, only now she's talking to the cat. Picking up a long thin tree branch she had found, she starts playing with the cat, distracting it. Then she gives it some food and eases it into petting. Once the cat decided she was a friend, it curled up in her lap and started purring. She picked up the mound of vibrating fluff with a triumphant air and told her team they could walk out now but Naruto had better be quiet because she did _not_ want to get scratched.

"Man! Those kids were right Sakura! You really _are_ a Witch!" Naruto joked as they walked back to the Hokage Tower. "Those chunin told me that cat was pure evil!"

Sakura thought it was hilarious that her moniker gained from being creepy and intimidating was now being applied to her cat skills.

"Witch?" Kakashi asked (more like wondered out loud).

"Oh yeah! Apparently our classmates thought Sakura was real scary or something cause stuff happened around her! I dunno, she's always been pretty okay to me." Naruto shrugged again, completely brushing off years of bullying for the both of them as if it was just a long week.

"Sasuke?" Kakashi prompted "is Sakura a witch?"

"A Witch!" Naruto corrected. Kakashi ignored him.

"...Hn" was Sasuke's delightful insight.

Giving up, Kakashi finally turned back to Sakura. "So, how'd you earn that name?"

She sighed, reliving memories of being curled up in the dirt and learning that people reacted badly to the unknown. "People attack what they don't understand unless they know it's stronger than them."

Kakashi narrows his eye, realising (perhaps for the first time) that he had missed something.

Apparently they were the first team ever to complete that mission unscathed.


	2. Innocence Lost

**This is a response to a recent review, I hope this clears things up for everyone.**

Okay, I hear what you're saying, and I thank you for the compliment on my writing, but I would like to defend (or at least explain) some of my choices.

Sakura ISN'T special. She's just a bit crazy. She's slipping a little, reality becoming less and less understandable. But she has no bloodline. She isn't a genius. She doesn't have to be a genius to practice, or explore, or go on studying sprees because she's pissed at Kakashi.

In cannon, Nohara Rin uses the Mystical Palm jutsu in the bridge mission as a chunin around the age of 11. I figured that with both cannon and my Sakura having near perfect chakra control (and the two or so years of shadowing Riku-san before actually managing the jutsu) it wouldn't be much of a stretch for her to pull it off too. Also, because my Sakura actually trained her chakra, she has larger reserves than canon Sakura who trained her makeup skills instead.

The reason I wrote Sakura's fascination with chakra and experimentation the way I did is because to her, to a civilian-born kid, it is literally magic. She has no idea what her limits are and she wants to explore. The clan kids grew up secure in the knowledge that chakra does This and not That. They grew up with the knowledge that chakra is a tool, a weapon, to be used for jutsus and, because those jutsus work for them just fine, it never occurs to them that they could use chakra completely differently. Also, I was using different cannon techniques as a base for Sakura's experiments. Chakra strings (that involve stretching chakra super thin and using it to move physical objects), sensory techniques (using chakra to sense the environment and other people), and so forth.

I don't know why you latched onto the Hyuuga in relation to my story, I never even mentioned them. Either way, the Hyuuga bloodline allows them to see chakra in a way that no one else can, and with less training. The clan therefore focuses intensely on one specific type of Taijutsu (Gentle Fist) that allows them to take complete advantage of their blood limit. They don't bother branching out and using their chakra differently because, to them, that would mean giving up some of their bloodline advantage. They don't WANT to use their chakra differently in any of the ways Sakura is.

But I guess, after all is said and done, I'm writing a fiction about a fictional world. I am God here and if I say chakra is naturally sparkly orange, then damn, I guess you're just gonna have to live with that.

* * *

Life just gets more muddled from there. Sakura tries to balance training and missions with family time but she can feel it slipping through her fingers. She used to cook dinner two to three times a week, experimenting with new recipes and serving imperfect but delicious meals for her parents to praise. Now she's lucky to get one in. Her parents don't address it of course, they know why she's out so much and so tired when she gets back. The D-ranks are dragging her all across the city but she never really runs into anyone she knows. Somehow, her parent's easy acceptance feels like they're pushing her further away.

As for her team, Naruto and her settled into an easy sort of friendship. He bounced around with energy and she suggested personal challenges to throw himself into. The challenges became increasingly ridiculous as she slowly realized he really _never_ ran out of energy.

"Hey Sakura! How're you! What do we think we're gonna do today? UGH! We better not be getting any more stupid D-ranks!" his dramatic pout reminded her of little kids whining about their food.

"Morning Naruto, you could see how high you can make yourself jump using chakra while we wait."

"WHOA, that's a great idea! Just watch Sakura! I'm gonna jump higher than the trees!"

...and he's off.

Sakura shook her head and settled into her morning training, running around the field without chakra assistance and trying to hit the various targets she'd set up previously while using her developing chakra sense to keep track of Naruto and Sasuke without looking. Sasuke, meanwhile, was alternating between running through fire jutsus and taijutsu katas.

It was their self-study / quiet time of the day which helped them focus later. It'd be another two hours before Kakashi bothered to show up. Something that bothered Sakura was that Kakashi wasn't really… teaching them anything. The only sparing they got done was when they tried to beat each other up during missions and the man hadn't taken a single moment to run them through exercises or teach them jutsus. They weren't improving.

That thought stuck with her all day. How little Kakashi was teaching, how they weren't going to become a team like this, let alone chunin. But why?

By the time the river was mostly clean, they were all sopping wet, and Naruto had nearly died twice, Sakura decided she might as well ask. As they were walking back to the tower, the boys on either side, she lifted her chin and tapped on Kakashi's arm for attention.

"Kakashi-sensei"

He glanced back at her. It was probably as much acknowledgment as he'd ever give her.

"Can you start running us through exercises and teaching us techniques tomorrow? Teamwork exercises? Obstacle courses?" She resisted the urge to twist her hands in the hem of her shirt.

Kakashi's eye flicked over the boys at her sides, they had stilled and were looking at him as if they could force him to give up jutsu with their eyes alone.

"Mah, I'll think about it."

And that, apparently, was that.

It did get better training-wise though, Kakashi-sensei didn't approach them like the academy instructors (Sakura suspected he didn't approach them like the other jounin-senseis either). He gave them challenges to work through during D-ranks (blindfolding or somehow restricting one or more of them or giving them weights). Once he introduced tree walking (and was shocked to find that Sakura already knew waterwalking as well) he started forbidding them from touching their feet to the ground. There was a really funny moment where the three of them were walking around on their hands because they ran out of wall.

He even tested their chakra natures. Lightning for Sasuke, Wind for Naruto, Water for Sakura.

Sakura grinned, "we're like a storm."

"If we're a storm now, we're gonna be a HURRICANE later! Believe it!"

Sasuke smirked, confident in belonging and power promised.

* * *

All too soon, they were called in for their first C-rank. Naruto was bouncing out of his skin with excitement and even Sasuke had anticipation showing through his stoic nonchalance. Sakura was just hoping it wasn't simply a more elaborate version of their D-ranks (they had been excited for those too and had been sorely disappointed).

"What if instead of painting fences we have to build a whole damn house?" She asked rhetorically.

The boys sent her withering (petulant really) glares.

In the end they got a drunk. An old drunk. An _insulting_ drunk.

"Sakuraaa! You jinxed us! Now all we've got is this stinky old man!" Naruto screeched in horror.

"Witch" Sasuke muttered.

Sakura shrugged unapologetically.

They listened to the old man's bluster, his self-proclaimed importance, his rants about their inadequacy. He was annoying and disrespectful but it wasn't their job to like their clients, just protect them. With this in mind, Sasuke and Sakura didn't exactly _stop_ Naruto from leaping at their client in anger, but they weren't exactly surprised when Kakashi stopped him anyways.

They were at the gates less than an hour later, packs full of supplies (and ramen) and their client still nursing his sake. No one on the team (except Kakashi obviously) had been outside the gates before which allowed them to reclaim the anticipatory air from before.

"Turn it down a bit dobe, they can probably hear you in Wave with the way you're shouting our mission details to the world" Sasuke snarked once Naruto's enthusiasm became too annoying.

"Oh yeah! Well with your gloomy avenger aura suffocating us all the time it's no wonder happiness annoys you!" Naruto stuck out his tongue for good measure as Sasuke's face turned as red as the tomatoes he claims to dislike.

Sakura sighs and leaved them to it. Stealth was a no go anyway since they're walking on the _road_ of all things. Kakashi is already engrossed in his book and she really doesn't feel like talking to Tazuna The Drunk so she practices stretching her chakra in a sphere around her, small pulses of chakra constantly being sent out and returned to her in a stream from the furthest edge. She can only manage a pitiful five meters in every direction but it's enough to monitor her team and it's a ways better than the wobbly, collapsing shell of chakra she started with years ago. She used to think it was kinda pointless to use the sphere considering how enemies are usually around or above but after Kakashi buried Sasuke in the bell test she's been paranoid about covering the underground too.

After about a minute of practice, the pulses felt almost meditative and Sakura closed her eyes, trusting her chakra sense to identify the rocks in her path. It was about this time that Kakashi glanced up, then around, eyes narrowing. When he caught sight of her looking for all the world like she was sleepwalking, she felt a slight fluctuation in his chakra that she assumed indicated surprise.

"Mah Sakura-chan, you didn't tell me you were a sensor" he admonished lightly.

Her eyes snapped open, meeting his. "You never really asked either Kakashi-sensei." Her voice dripped with saccharin politeness.

When he frowned she could tell he was getting pretty near done with her verbal jabs and passive aggressive behavior. She didn't care, no matter how petulant and childish she was being there was still the vindictive feeling that Kakashi deserved this for being such a terrible teacher. He turned away, apparently not going to push her on the topic of hidden skills while they were still so exposed.

The boys had been silent for a while now, probably bored out of their minds, which meant they heard everything. After fending off Naruto's questions about sensors and the many uses of chakra, Sakura noticed Sasuke's evaluative look. He knew she wasn't a pushover simply from the sheer amount of brawling team 7 engaged in but every once in a while he looked completely surprised whenever Naruto or her turned out to be competent in something. It should probably be insulting but Sakura had grown accustomed to Sasuke's complete lack of respect for anyone at all.

* * *

As always, time passes incredibly slowly until it moves too fast. Sakura had been taking a break from sensing to conserve her chakra the *swish* of metal moving through air had her pulling Tazuna to the ground before she even registered her actions. Turning her head to find whoever had attacked them (and she was going to kill Naruto if it turned out he had just thrown a kunai out of boredom) she froze in horror at the sight of razor-lined chains wrapping around Kakashi-sensei and _pulling him apart_. He fell in litteral pieces in front of her and she felt her heart lodge in her throat. She couldn't breath. She saw her own feelings reflected back at her on Sasuke and Naruto's faces. Sasuke snapped out of it first, snarling and throwing kunai at an enemy ninja. When the other beelined for her (or her client really) Sakura didn't even think, just raised her arm and _pushed_ a line of chakra straight at him. Memories of her stretching her chakra to drag books to her bed when she caught the flu flickered past as she watched a hole appear in the man's gut. She could see his spine. She saw the intestines, and liver, and oh-god-she-punctured-the-stomach. She watched her technique destroy precious tissue she had spent years learning to stitch together. She threw up.

Sakura was still dry-heaving next to Tazuna in the dirt when Kakashi patted her on the head. The other ninja had been knocked out and was currently hanging in a headlock tucked under the jounin's arm. He wasn't dead. Which meant one thing, he had tricked them. He had pulled a stunt that left three unblooded ( _previously_ unblooded) genin thinking their teacher was dead and gone and in fucking pieces on the floor. Her cry of rage was thick and garbled but the punch she swung at him would have broken his arm if he had blocked it. As it was, he tripped her and kneeled on her back as she spit dirt out of her mouth and shouted at him until she couldn't do anything but cry. Cry because with all her experiments to see what she could do with her chakra were tainted now. She couldn't think of them without wondering how they might be used to kill, to fight, to trap and distract. Cry because she had just lost a part of herself in the whole in that faceless ninja's stomach and it _was all Kakashi's fault_.

She snapped back to reality with Naruto's snarled, dramatic declaration and the splash of his blood hitting the floor. She scrambled to get up, to get to her teammate, and Kakashi let her. She didn't know why Naruto had just stabbed himself, or why he looked so damn proud of it, she just wanted her team to _stop fucking bleeding everywhere_. She yanked his hand towards her, ignoring his yelp of shock, and had it healed up again before he could yank it back.

"But Sakuraaa! I just made a vow!" He complained, still startled by her recent outbursts.

She yanks him close to glare at him, then makes a point of glaring at Sasuke and Kakashi too.

"If you assholes don't start keeping your blood _inside_ your bodies I will _make you_ and you will _not_ like my methods" she hisses at them. Naruto (tactfully) doesn't mention the shaking of her hands where they're wrapped in his collar.

Kakashi defuses the situation by questioning Tazuna and focusing on the mission at hand, deliver the bridge builder to his bridge. There'll be more ninja, he says, probably higher ranked too. It sounds like a terrible idea, Sakura wants to say. But she doesn't because after being on this team, she can read Naruto and Sasuke, she can see how they think they need this mission, need to prove themselves to… something. And she sighs, because she wants to prove herself too and they're all probably going to die but at least they'll fight first.

And if she can't look at Kakashi without seeing bloody lines running across his skin… well she figures that's just how life is as a shinobi.


	3. First Encounters

Almost immediately after they set off once again to Wave, Sakura collapses. Without the adrenaline to numb and sustain her, the chakra drain from that one move nearly knocks her out cold. There had been no subtlety or finesse, no control. When she shoved a spear of chakra into the man's gut it had cost her nearly half her chakra in the three seconds she had maintained it.

She can hear Naruto freaking out and distantly hear Kakashi say something about Shock, Chakra, and Shut Up Naruto (wait, no, that one was Sasuke). Her vision tunnels and fills with black for a painfully disconcerting few seconds before she regains control of her body and heaves herself up using Kakashi's shoulder. She's running through her medic checklist, trying to see if the sudden drain damaged any Tenketsu, and concludes that once she adjusts to the new levels she'll be fine. Well, tired and feeling like she has bruises all along her chakra network, but fine. She communicates this to her team.

"Undeveloped techniques do that" Kakashi drawls, sending her another of his famous looks, this one admonishing her for biting off more than she can chew. "It's why they're such a bad idea to use in combat."

Sakura fumes.

She keeps the remaining half of her chakra crawling under her skin constantly, even when they board their "ferry" two hours later. It's both in case she needs to use it at a moments notice and in response to her inner turmoil. Somehow, it was easier to gloss over the fact that she just _killed a man_ when she could direct her emotional energies into picking apart every single thing she found lacking (or simply annoying) about her sensei. Such as his complete lack of empathy. Or his occasional looks of disappointment as if her ignorance stemmed from slacking off in training rather than _not receiving any_.

She resolves to solve this the way she did the genjutsu problem. Practice until her chakra system begs for a merciful death (or three days of sleep) and she could do the technique in her sleep. 'Actually' she thinks 'I haven't had many chances to use my genjutsu recently.'

She doesn't notice Sasuke subtly put a bit more distance between them after seeing the look on her face.

…

As far as Sakura knew, no one on her team knows she has any skill in genjutsu (let alone low chunin level) so she decides it's time to stoop to Naruto's level and play a prank. Of course, she would later carefully word it as "a teamwork exercise to notice, identify, and dispel unexpected genjutsus." She would also carefully emphasize that they _had_ just been ambushed by enemy nin using concealing genjutsu so the "extra practice" was justified.

Unfortunately they were still in the middle of a mission, a mission with confirmed presence of hostiles. She settles for convincing Kakashi his hair has always been an alarming shade of violet. Of course, this is layered over another convincing him his hair has always been white (original color obviously) which is layered over another convincing him it had always been a light brown. She added to her ruse by layering genjutsu on the boys and Tazuna convincing them Kakashi's hair had always been light brown. She did not affect the physical appearance of his hair. Her pettiness was worth it to see him surreptitiously check his reflection in a kunai amid the group's shocked observation of his "newly" white hair.

Of course, that was the point at which a powerful missing-nin decided to ambush them. What a surprise.

Naruto, being completely oblivious of the fact that people kill other people in their line of work, completely ignores the guy's dramatic entrance and drags him into the debate about Kakashi's hair color. Kakashi himself had already dispelled all three genjutsus placed on him and had simply been enjoying his team's confusion. It turned out to be pretty useful, Sakura decided as the missing-nin starts revealing all sorts of information (including Kakashi's nickname the Copy Nin) in an effort to make Naruto see sense. Zabuza even pulls out his Bingo Book in an attempt to make Naruto see sense, waving Kakashi's entry under the boy's nose. By this point Sasuke had figured out and quietly dispelled the illusion but, like his sensei, figured it was okay to let Naruto distract the guy longer. Naruto, never one to be dissuaded by petty facts, would have argued all day if Tazuna hadn't brought attention back to himself by reminding everyone that _He_ was the important one here and how we should be _fighting_ the enemy not _arguing with him_.

To be fair, everything he said was perfectly reasonable. Sakura hated him for it anyway.

Kakashi and Zabuza moved so fast not even Sasuke could follow them. Less than a second later, the clang of sword-on-kunai reverberated around the clearing and the Sakura turned in time to catch the afterimage of the two. The fight had begun. Kakashi yells at them to protect Tazuna so the three huddle around him like it would make a difference. Sakura figures that her prank genjutsu worked so well she might as well keep them up.

"Don't move no matter what you see. Nothing is real unless I tell you it is." Sakura hisses to her teammates. She slaps a hand over Naruto's mouth before he can loudly ask her exactly what she meant by that and focuses on her illusions.

Sakura trusts the boys to pay attention to the fight and slips into the trees, focusing entirely on weaving illusions to trip Zabuza up. He can dispel them as fast as she can make them but without knowing where she is he can't make her stop. She quickly realizes it's much easier to make a rock or tree root look like it's an inch to the left than try to cast genjutsus directly on the man. Kakashi presses his advantage every time there's a break in Zabuza's fluid movements (the jounin version of stumbling). Sakura weaves more and more illusions, using the opportunity to vent. _Stupid fucking Kakashi acting like shit was_ her _fault, she's just a genin she wasn't prepared and he acts like he's fucking_ disapointed _in her for being a little clumsy killing a man._ The two jounins, Sasuke, and Tazuna become increasingly more confused and concerned as their surroundings warp and shift and mutate, constantly changing as illusions are dispelled and cast, until even Naruto notices something's not right.

"Ne Sasuke, why is blood dripping from the leaves of that tree?" Naruto points at said tree, it's bark seemed to be slowly twisting and slithering. Sakura has the presence of mind to cringe a bit at the morbidity. She was nearly out of chakra and would probably pass out soon but she couldn't stop making the illusions, it was addicting.

"Did you just _now_ notice dobe?! The water turned black ages ago, Tazuna turned into a tree, Zabuza's pants turned fuschia, and Kakashi has a Sharingan!" Sasuke growls. Like the two jounin, he had decided there were simply too many illusions to dispel which meant that he just assumed every unexpected thing was genjutsu. Obligingly, Sakura makes it seem like Kakashi had managed to slash Zabuza's mask, revealing shark teeth, only for the man to rip the real mask off a second later and reveal that he actually _did_ have shark teeth which honestly just confused everyone more. The jounin also seemed to be appearing and disappearing across the battlefield as Sakura maked shadow clones or simply convinced Zabuza's mind that Kakashi was in a slightly different location. Kakashi, with his sharingan seeing through all illusions, had a definite advantage fighting in the quagmire of strange, bright, and alarming illusions Sakura had set up.

Zabuza decidedly did _not_ have an advantage, even surrounded by water as he was. If his foot appeared to disappear _one more time_ he would just flood the woods and knock the upstart genin out of their cozy hiding spot, his duel with high A-rank jounin Hatake Kakashi be damned. They weren't even good illusions he muttered (whined) to himself, there was just so many and they were so weird but harmless they generally weren't even worth the effort to dispel. At least, not until he ended up with a kunai in his gut because he could have sworn it was two inches higher and therefore ended up blocking air. The illusions got more unsettling and directed after that. Illusions of pain were annoying but expected. Illusions of feeling worms under his skin were _not_. Quiet whispers or earsplitting shrieks echoed in his head even after dispelled, which led him to dispel the next level… and the next. At one point his fingernails turned into leeches. He felt water in his lungs and moved to dispel it only to realize Kakashi had nailed him to a tree with his own suiton jutsu instead of throwing kunai like Zabuza had thought. Trapped and hallucinating that the sun had turned red, his skin was writhing like snakes, and that the tree was trying to absorb him, Zabuza didn't even notice when the senbon pierced his neck until the world faded out and he fell into blessed oblivion.

After Kakashi talked with the missing nin who then disapeared with Zabuza's body, he turned and walked back to the three (no, two) genin surrounding Tazuna (who looked ready to be sick as all the surreal illusions faded until the normal landscape returned).

"Where" he said in the type of calm and controlled voice that sends shivers down your spine "is Sakura?"

The boys froze. Tazuna froze. Sakura swayed dangerously in her tree from extreme chakra exhaustion. She jumped out of the tree and landed in a pile 7ft to Kakashi's right. A pitiful groan rose from the unmoving pile. Somehow, Kakashi still managed to make eye contact with her. He was an imposing sight, with his height and marks of his recent fight (and victory) as he loomed over her shivering form.

"We" dramatic pause "will talk about this later."

And then he collapsed. Right next to her.

Sakura stayed awake just long enough to hear Naruto start to freak out before she blacked out too.

….

She woke in a modest bedroom on what was obviously a guest futon by the stored-in-the-closet smell that clung to it. It hadn't been aired out yet. She just laid there for a minute, feeling how her body ached and her head felt like it was stuffed with cotton. She listened to movement in the house, it was quiet except for someone walking around downstairs and… was that food she smelled?

Tsunami, she learned, was one of those people who found strength from being secure in their position. She didn't care that her houseguests were ninja as long as she could feed them and they were polite to her as the hostess. Her kid however hadn't found strength in anything yet and projected that on the rest of them. Sakura had barely said "hi" to the brat before he was predicting her death and calling her weak (and also a hero for some reason?). She'd fallen back on old habits and, after only once incident of glowing green eyes and fingertips (and a darkening hallway), he was calling her Witch too.

When her team appeared for dinner, she learned that Kakashi had woken a mere 4 hours before her and, not only was Zabuza alive, he had a teammate. A teammate with a knowledge of anatomy to rival her own who was highly competent in throwing senbon. Great. What were they going to do? She wondered. Train. Kakashi answered. She didn't know what was more surprising, Kakashi _volunteering_ to train them in anything, or the worry in what was visible of his face.

What were they going to learn, you might ask. Well, Kakashi was particularly pleased with himself about this one. They were going to learn to dodge.

"I'll be covering Zabuza so you three better get good at dodging senbon!" he called cheerfully at them while they ran through the man's obstacle course from hell (where every trap involved senbon except one and it moved each time) for what felt like the hundredth time that day. Naruto and Sasuke were somehow cooperating even _less_ than normal (which already bordered on hostility) and, between their rabid need to beat each other and the strange looks they sent at Sakura, it wasn't hard to feel like the team was falling apart at the seams. Sasuke seemed to have taken it as a sign of his weakness that he _hadn't_ killed a man too and Naruto was beating himself up for not _defending_ her. Sakura herself was too tired to even try to sort them out and instead focused on training to ignore her own conflicted feelings over the past few days.

He did eventually talk to Sakura about her genjutsu, he had warned her that her illusion-spamming would have gotten him killed if he hadn't just-so-happened to have one of the extremely rare bloodline abilities that allowed him to see through such illusions with no effort. She carefully didn't comment that she had known that and wouldn't have spammed so much if she hadn't seen that they weren't affecting him. Then he lectured her about chakra exhaustion which had her nearly screeching at him about the hypocrisy which he distracted her from by bringing up the technique she'd used to kill that one missing nin. She'd explained that it had been instinct and hadn't meant to use a new technique, let alone go for a kill shot. He told her to train it in her free time so it wouldn't catch her by surprise next time. All in all, it had been a pretty civil conversation for the both of them.

It wasn't until she'd nearly collapsed from chakra exhaustion in a random forest clearing later that night that she realized her infuriating sensei hadn't even batted an eye at her knowledge and competent use of genjutsu. Her frustrated scream upset some birds but did nothing to soothe the complicated ball of _frustration-inadequacy-uselessness_ she felt around the man.

'Maybe,' she thought to herself 'just maybe, I'd like him to say "good job."'


End file.
